Olympus Optical Company, Ltd.

Kunio Yokoyama

Tatsuya Suzuki

Moriya Katagiri

Koji Kato

Shinya Takahashi

Hiroyuki Ando

Hiroaki Miyazaki

Hidenori Sakurai

Yoshiyuki Kitahara

Sumio Kawai

Shigeo Hayashi

Keita Takahashi

Junichi Ito

Tamotsu Koiwai

Tatsuya Satoh

Minoru Hara

Yasuo Yamazaki

Takashi Inoue

Shunji Matsutani

Hideaki Kume

Masaki Nagao

Yuji Kobayashi

Setsuya Kataoka

Hitoshi Yagi

This camera is a camera having a compartment for loading and storing various members with a predetermined sheet member attached along the inner wall face of the compartment, in which the sheet member is attached at a predetermined position by a very easy and inexpensive means while assuring good operability during the assembly operation and the disassembly operation, comprising a camera main body where an aperture section is formed at a visible position and a sheet member which is attached by elastic deformation without gluing for covering the aperture section, to be attached/removed easily. With such construction, a camera which can contribute to making the manufacturing process efficient and decreasing the manufacturing cost can be provided.

Camera

A lens barrel assembly includes a lens barrel and a lens hood detachably mounted on the lens barrel. A lens barrel includes a mounting threaded portion and three guide rails at three circularly equally spaced positions around the lens barrel. Each guide rail is provided with a forward latch and a rearward latch. The lens hood is constructed of an elastically deformable member, and has a notch to be engaged with the rail. The lens hood is in sliding engagement with the outer circumference of the lens barrel, and is movable between a retracted position and a photographing position. At each position, the lens hood is locked by the respective latch. The lens hood is easily shifted to the photographing position or to the retracted position along the lens barrel, and is also easily attached to and detached from a camera.

Lens barrel assembly

In a camera body section of a camera according to the present invention, a cartridge chamber unit and a spool chamber unit are located on a lower connecting member with a lens barrel unit as a central unit. Furthermore, a driving-force transfer mechanism is located under the lower connecting member. An output of a driving motor located inside the spool chamber is transferred to the lens barrel unit, cartridge chamber unit, and spool chamber unit through a driving-force transfer mechanism by changing the unit receiving the output. In particular, the driven sections of the lens barrel unit and cartridge chamber unit are driven through a worm gear. According to this camera, it requires a minimum change of each unit section to accommodate a specification change and/or a model change. In addition, it is easy to perform partial assembly of every unit.

A lens barrel is provided with: first and second lens frames which are adapted to be able to make a relative displacement therebetween and are adapted so that an inner peripheral portion of one of the first and second lens frames overlaps with an outer peripheral portion of the other lens frame in a used state; a light shielding portion, which is provided at one end portion of the first lens frame, for blocking light which is incident from the end portion in the used state; and a pressure-contact light shield member that is provided at a place which is nearer to an other end portion of the first lens frame than the light shielding portion provided at the one end portion thereof and that is adapted to be elastically deformed by being pressure-contacted to the outer peripheral portion of the second lens frame, thereby blocking light transmitted by the light shielding portion provided at the one end portion of the first lens frame.

Lens barrel

A camera body comprises a lens barrel unit, a spool chamber unit forming a spool chamber, a patrone chamber unit forming a patrone chamber, and a rail member that has an aperture that is provided so that a beam from the lens barrel unit can pass through and guide rails defining a position of film to the aperture, and is a connecting member that connects the spool chamber unit and patrone chamber unit, and has an approximately plate-like shape.

Camera with modular components

A camera equipped with a compact mechanism for loading or unloading film cassettes, has an R fork that transmits a drive force to the spool shaft of a film cassette in a cassette compartment so as to rotate the spool shaft in a predetermined direction. The cassette compartment is such that two opposite end faces in the axial direction of the spool are generally of the same size as two opposite end faces of the loaded film cassette and the R fork is urged in such a direction that it protrudes into the cassette compartment along the spool shaft and that it is capable of movement between two positions, one being where it protrudes into the cassette compartment and the other being where it retracts therefrom.

A camera having a device for feeding a film, includes a driving unit for generating driving force, a first unit to be driven for feeding the film in a first direction, a second unit to be driven for feeding the film in a second direction which is different from the first direction, and a portion to be driven always engaged with the driving unit, a shaft unit being angularly moved by the driving unit, a driving portion always engaged with the first unit to be driven for moving the shaft unit while angularly moving the shaft unit in an axial direction of the shaft unit when the shaft unit is angularly moved by the driving unit, and an engagement portion for being engaged with the second unit to be driven.

A camera having a device for feeding a film, comprises a driving unit for generating driving force, a first unit to be driven for feeding the film in a first direction, a second unit to be driven for feeding the film in a second direction which is different from the first direction, and a portion to be driven always engaged with the driving unit, a shaft unit being angularly moved by the driving unit, a driving portion always engaged with the first unit to be driven for moving the shaft unit while angularly moving the shaft unit in an axial direction of the shaft unit when the shaft unit is angularly moved by the driving unit, and an engagement portion for being engaged with the second unit to be driven.

A lens barrel comprises a number of main body ribs formed integral with a camera main body and projecting therefrom in the direction of the optical axis, first and second lens barrels provided between and movable along a pair of the main body ribs, and a cam ring mounted on the periphery of the main body ribs, the first and the second lens barrels and rotatable with respect to the camera main body around the optical axis. The cam ring has a first cam groove having an opening portion and a second cam groove having a recess. First and second cam followers of the first and second lens barrels are engaged with the first and second cam grooves, respectively. When the cam ring is rotated in a direction A or B, the first and second cam followers are moved forward or backward along the first and second cam grooves. As a result, the first and second lens barrels are moved forward or backward in the direction of the optical axis along the pair of the main body ribs.

A position information recorder incorporated in a camera comprises a position measurement unit that receives position information via a GPS which is a position measurement system using satellites and that performs position measurement to calculate a position, a receiving state determination unit that determines the state of receiving the position information, a memory that stores position measurement data, and a magnetic recording unit that records data in the magnetic recording area of film. When position measurement data cannot be fetched, position measurement information stored in the memory immediately before is read out and recorded.

This invention is directed to a camera in which an ordinary or normal photographing image-plane size, a photographing image-plane size narrower or smaller than the normal photographing image-plane size, for example, a panoramic size, and the like are changeable, the camera comprising a back closure openable and closable with respect to a camera body, an aperture arranged between a film and a photographing lens, for regulating an exposure range corresponding to the normal photographing image-plane size, a light shielding unit arranged between the film and the photographing lens and so arranged as to be movable between a saving position where the light shielding unit is saved (i.e. spaced) from the inside of the aperture so as not to interrupt an exposure luminous flux incident upon the aperture and a projecting position where the light shielding unit projects inwardly of the aperture to interrupt a part or substantially all of the exposure luminous flux, an operating unit for assigning the narrow photographing image-plane size, a detecting unit for detecting at least one camera operating condition including a power source condition of the camera, an opening and closing condition of the back closure, a forcible rewinding condition of the film and an exposure condition to a film surface, and a drive unit for driving the exposure unit, the drive unit driving the light shielding unit to the inward-most projected position or a saved position in spite of assignment of the operating unit in accordance with an output from the detecting unit.

Image-plane-size changeover camera

A camera having a sound recording function is disclosed, in which an object image is photographed/recorded, as an optical image transmitted through a photographic optical system or photoelectrically converted image data, on a film having a magnetic recording portion, a magnetic disk/tape, or the like, while sound data is sampled for a predetermined period of time before/after the photographic operation. The sampled sound data is temporarily stored in a sound data storage section constituted by a semiconductor memory and the like. In a film wind-up operation, the sound data is written in the magnetic recording portion of the film. With this operation, the predetermined number of frames can be photographed regardless of whether sound data is present or absent. Further, another camera having a sound recording function is disclosed, in which sound around the camera (sound data) at a given time is temporarily stored in a sound data storage section 54, and sound stored during a film wind-up (film advance) operation is stored on a magnetic track of a film.

Camera having sound recording function

The present invention relates to a film magazine having an external cylinder both end surfaces of which are closed by upper and lower covers, and a spool hub rotatably contained in the external cylinder at the axis thereof. The spool hub has a thin winding shaft cylinder having and axial length substantially the same as the axial length of the external cylinder and a projection provided on an upper portion of the inner periphery thereof so as to engage a rewind mechanism of a camera. The winding shaft cylinder has a hollow space longitudinally extending over the interior length thereof. A strobe capacitor as a constituent part of the camera body is disposed in the space so that the space in the camera can be further decreased.

Film magazine and camera

A camera capable of recording photographic information, according to the invention, comprises, a pressure-information detector for detecting pressure information at a location where a camera body is positioned, a magnetic recorder for recording the information detected by the pressure-information detector onto a magnetic memory section provided on a film, as environmental information, and a recording controller for controlling the photographic-information recorder such that the detected information and a photographic image are recorded correspondingly to each other.

Growing community of inventors

Hino, Japan

Kunio Yokoyama